ABSTRACT
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson was an explorer, Egyptologist and antiquarian, who like many others of his generation was interested in other cultures. Wilkinson takes the contemporary idea of learning by comparison, by including illustrative examples of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taste placed in contrast. One reviewer of the book commented how ‘In common with all travellers in the East, Sir Gardner Wilkinson bears testimony to the singular taste displayed by the Eastern nations, especially the Arabs, in the choice and arrangement of colours’. In terms of colour, a review of this book in The Gardeners’ Chronicle discussed the colouration of plants and their uses and considered the limits of Chevreul’s colour theory. His long residence in the East, and the study which he gave to the ancient arts of the people among whom he dwelt, as his previous publications show, well qualify him to become an instructor at home on matters which have again induced him to appear as an author.
